4 years old portrait of smiling kid Istvan Reiner that was taken
just weeks before , and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz
concentration camp, was a complex of over 40 concentration and
extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a
portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the
Holocaust.
It consisted of Auschwitz I, the
main camp (Stammlager) in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a
concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers; Auschwitz
III-Monowitz, a labor camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben; and
dozens of subcamps.The camps became a major site of the Nazis' Final
Solution to the Jewish Question.
After Germany
sparked World War II by invading Poland in September 1939, the
Schutzstaffel (SS) converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, into a
prisoner-of-war camp.
The initial transport of
political detainees to Auschwitz consisted nearly solely of Poles to
whom the camp was initially established. The bulk of inmates were Polish
for the first two years.
In May 1940, German
criminals brought to the camp as functionaries, established the camp's
reputation for sadism. Prisoners were beaten, tortured, and executed for
the most trivial reasons. The first gassings—of Soviet and Polish
prisoners—took place in block 11 of Auschwitz I around August 1941.
Construction
of Auschwitz II began the following month, and from 1942 until late
1944 freight trains delivered Jews from all over German-occupied Europe
to its gas chambers. Of the 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz, 1.1
million died.
The death toll includes 960,000
Jews (865,000 of whom were gassed on arrival), 74,000 ethnic Poles,
21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and up to 15,000 other
Europeans.Those not gassed died of starvation, exhaustion, disease,
individual executions, or beatings. Others were killed during medical
experiments.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Said Edmund Burke more than 200 years ago.
In the photo, 4-year-old Istvan Reiner looks happy and full of joy
Shortly after taking this photo, he was murdered in the Auschwitz death camp (44)
Like almost another million and a half more children who perish during World War II just because they were born Jews.
🕯Dear friends, We work tirelessly to maintain this project and we really need your support.
Every
small donation can help us pay for the tools/archives/time used to help
our members in their journey to the world's darkest period.
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